Even good guys still get paid (so watch your back and keep the blade)
by ibuzoo
Summary: She can wield a blade in her hands as easily as she can put a Browning GP-35 in pieces and back together under a minute, blindfolded. She knows 24 different kinds of poison and hits her victims with a handgun at a distance of 400 meters spot-on. When Albus Dumbledore hires her to search and kill Tom Marvolo Riddle, she takes the money and leaves.


**Even good guys still get paid (so watch your back and keep the blade)**

**Prompt: **Hunted

**Rating:** M

**Warnings:** Modern AU / Serial Killer AU / Mob AU

**Word count: **2423

**Summary:** She can wield a blade in her hands as easily as she can put a Browning GP-35 in pieces and back together under a minute, blindfolded. She knows 24 different kinds of poison and hits her victims with a handgun at a distance of 400 meters spot-on.

When Albus Dumbledore, Mafia Don of the Order hires her to search and kill Tom Marvolo Riddle, heir and Mafia Don of the Death Eaters, she feels the thrill of excitement rushing trough her veins.

She takes the money and leaves.

**A/N:** I think this AU needs some explanation. Hermione is an assassin in this AU but she's not a Dark!Hermione at all, and actually this was (again) a full planned story with 15 chapters + prologue and epilogue but I really don't have the time to write it at the moment - nevertheless I thought I'd share this with you guys. It captures and summarises roughly (really really roughly because there's just so much more that I could have written but like I said I don't have the time) the first 2 chapters and perhaps I'll have the time to write it some day. Oh and I should mention that an excavator is the tool a dentist uses to scratch on your teeth during treatment, you need to know for obvious reasons. This is also the longest prompt I've written so far, I hope you will like it.

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

* * *

**o.**

She's a survivor.

_(it's written all over her body)_

**i.**

She wears jeans and sweaters, snug to her skin, cold leather that doesn't absorb the blood of her victims when she puts a bullet trough them, ankles hidden in cunning leather boots. Her hair is short, pixie cut so the wild mane of amber locks she once wore wouldn't reveal her anymore and she's fast, runs up to 5 miles in an hour but she has no home, a soldier on her own, hired for money.

She can wield a blade in her hands as easily as she can put a Browning GP-35 in pieces and back together under a minute, blindfolded. She knows 24 different kinds of poison and can shoot her victims with a handgun at a distance of 400 meters in the head.

When Albus Dumbledore, Mafia Don of the Order hires her to search and kill Tom Marvolo Riddle, heir and Mafia Don of the Death Eaters, she feels the thrill of excitement rushing trough her veins.

She takes the money and leaves.

**ii.**

Tom Marvolo Riddle is a ghost, an enigma, a shadow, and the first time Hermione hears of the man it's a whisper in the dark, a gibing guide and nothing more, a _riddle_ really and she wonders if the pun is intended. She can't seem to get a grip at him and once she figures out his whereabout, he's already gone and leaves no traces behind, always ten steps ahead of her.

It's utterly frustrating.

_(it's utterly fascinating nevertheless)_

**iii.**

She needs a week to have a list of his closest members, his admirals, his _'Knights'_ how he calls them.

It's a start at least.

**iv.**

Actually she wants to start with Nott, because her researches tell her he's the youngest of them, barely twenty-six and how can you be head of the financial management in a mafia organisation at that age?

But faith seems to have other plans for her business because the first one that crosses her way is Antonin Dolohov, a skinny man with long legs and full lips who wears dark navy tailored pinstripe suits which stand in stark contrast to his fair skin.

He's strapped to a chair with ropes that cut into his wrists and she likes the way he tries to fight against them, rips his skin on the roughness of the yarns - it makes her smile, cruel and pitiful at once.

"Where's Tom Marvolo Riddle?", she asks in the hollow room and the resonation sounds loud, cupped and almost cavernous but Antonin presses his lips in a thin line, sets his jaw and spits, clearly belligerent and mocking, "You tell me, where is he?"

Her hand lashes out and the clashing sound of skin on skin echoes trough the room when her backhand makes contact with his cheek. It's almost absurd but she admires his cockiness, smirks and her reflection on the silver surface of her knife shows teeth, almost like a shark-bit. Her finger runs carefully over the blade, caressing, and she sighs in relief or content, she can't differ but she doesn't care either, turns around and positions it right on Antonin's neck, gracing his main artery.

"I'll ask again, where's Tom Marvolo Riddle?"

**v.**

She leaves him still strapped, with cuts and bruises on face and skin and takes his phone but it's a dead end, no message leads her to Riddle, not even a bit closer.

_(she doesn't kill him, he's not her target after all)_

**vi.**

She's smoking next to some sordid club with neon lights illuminating the street in bright blue and pink and she huffs out a long, drawn breath while cigarette smoke escapes her lips in small clouds, disappearing into thin air within mere seconds. She doesn't even like smoking, the taste is far too vile and bitter on her taste buds and she can practically feel her lungs burning with tar, turning them black with each inhale. She still can't understand the satisfaction it brings to people who actually fume, but she knows that soon enough the next name on the list will exit the club to have a smoke - and this will be her chance.

She leans her back against the cold stonewall and waits.

It doesn't last long until Argus Mulciber comes in view, wild curly mop and beautiful innocent eyes, like a teddy bear, with jeans and tee and she gives him a light, starts to talk, shifts closer.

She knows that he's a computer specialist, but she knows moreover that he stands no chance against her fighting skills.

She takes another pull on her cigarette.

**vii.**

She leaves the alley an hour later, grime on her clothes, blood on her cheek and a body on the ground.

_(unconscious, not dead)_

She starts running.

_(she doesn't kill him, he's not her target after all)_

**viii.**

Hermione hums under her breath as she lays out her supplies and it's been awhile; she puts the screwdriver in the wrong spot at first, has to switch it out for the hatchet, pushes the dividers at the far end of her briefcase and then adjust everything so there's enough room again. Thirteen supplies, thirteen ways to make Theodore Nott talk.

Her eyes rest on the young face who's the same age as herself with his blond tousled hair and wide blown eyes that hold no emotion at all, just pure contempt.

She starts with the excavator.

**ix.**

Conall Avery takes her by surprise an hour later and she grabs her tool kit and throws him in a swift movement right over her shoulder, kicks him in both knees and lashes with her elbow right in his guts. She tosses herself out the window, catches the fire ladder and disappears in the dark.

She can scratch two names of her list that night.

_(she doesn't kill them, they're not her target after all)_

**x.**

Everything she ever faced, has still claw marks on it.

**xi.**

She orders a whiskey and Coke the minute she gets in, and orders a second right after she finishes the first. People edge past her to take their place at the bar and Hermione pushes her shoulders in to make herself appear even smaller. She doesn't like clubs; they're loud, smoky, the music is terrible and so are the people but this is the best chance to catch the next one, so she drinks, observes, waits.

Even Rosier is exactly the kind of man she thought him to be and he looks like a fish out of water with his elegant tailored brand-name suit, glass of whisky in his hand and everyone seems to know the man, to fall over themselves to talk to him and Hermione watches, studies, needs to get him in a back chamber.

She flutters her eyelashes and licks her lips once she has his attention and that's all it needs, really.

**xii.**

She ties him to the bed and scourges him with his belt, tucks it on his gorge and pulls until his face turns purple and blue and red.

"Where's Tom Marvolo Riddle?", her voice presses between her lips, a breathless sound, a warning and she loosens her grip, gives him time to cough and breathe again.

However as soon as he finds his voice he laughs, scratches in his lungs and he coughs once more, shakes his head and looks straight in her eyes and she notices how handsome his face is, with a masculine jaw and stubble that gives him a dandy look, and he muses, almost whispers, " 'sorry, can't help you darling. Go on and gag me if you're into this kind of thing - but wouldn't it be more fun if we'd be naked?" A little smirk appears on his bruised lips where she hit him with her elbow before to knock him out and she realises that the bastard flirts with her.

She whales him in the neck to knock him out once more.

**xiii.**

She bunks a second after, hair and clothes a mess and leaves a tip on the counter to pay for the room.

_(she doesn't kill him, he's not her target after all)_

**xiv.**

Augustus Rockwood leaves the country the day after and Hermione watches his backcombed gelled head disappear between masses of passengers.

_(she doesn't follow him, he's not her target after all)_

**xv.**

She dresses in black leather once more and the cold fabric fits her like a second skin. She hides two knives in her boots and a gun on the small of her back and she goes where the men go, sits at the end of a long wooden table in some shady tavern near the port. Their bawdy jokes don't disgust her, neither do they interest her and she nurses her wine, unwatered and heady while some of the sailors and travellers smile at her.

Rabastan Lestrange enters the building hours later, close to midnight but she doesn't mind.

She's ready.

**xvi.**

The blade feels great, glorious as it slices trough Rabastan's skin, leaves red patterns on his upper arms and thighs. The blood flows quickly and drips off onto the floor to a small puddle while Hermione presses the razor-sharp knife to his throat, scratches on the surface while her voice stays steady, calm, asking: "Now, where's Tom Marvolo Riddle?"

He remains silent, purses his lips and clenches his teeth until his face is painfully distorted which is a shame really because he looks handsome with eyes colder as anything she ever saw, high cheekbones and body slim but ripped, the kind of man she likes in her bed, and he fights against the manacles that she used to cuff him to a metal shackle that hung from the ceiling of a back chamber in the warehouse. She observes how his lips pucker up and she draws her gun, holds it to his face and he laughs manically, presses his torso forwards so his front kisses the barrel, shouts, really bawls, "Come on, shoot me! Shoot me! SHOOT ME!"

She downs him with the stock of her Browning.

**xvii.**

Hermione admires apex predators like Riddle, but there's a special place in her heart for someone like Rabastan, a rat with survivalist instincts and loyalty to its leader.

She steals his aviators and leaves the port.

_(she doesn't kill him, he's not her target after all)_

**xviii.**

She should have known that Greyback is the hardest of them all and she should have avoid him all along, instead he catches her neck and throws her trough the room as soon as she tries to creep up on him in his hotel room. Her back crashes into the bed table and the pain flares up in her, leaves her breathless for a second but it's enough for the bloodhound to catch her wrist, push her against the wall and his bulky hand deflates her, struggles against her throat until she feels her lungs burning and she gasps, rattles. She braces her feet against his thighs and pushes, kicks him in the groins until he loosens his grip and she drops down, takes her knife out of her boot and presses it right in his abdomen.

She observes how he stumbles back but she doesn't care for the rest, turns around and runs.

**xix.**

There's blood on her forehead that drips down, slowly, warm, over her eyes and she thinks it's hers, could always be Greybacks if she's lucky, and she rubs at her front, fingertips coming back red, like omens and she puts them in the sink of some cheap motel and washes it all away.

_(she doesn't return for him, he's not her target after all)_

**xx.**

She needs to hide for some days - she's thought how to bleed in secret.

**xxi.**

This time she stretches a point.

She breaks into the house at night, silent, like a shadow and she's not really surprised to find it pretentious at the best with polished marble statues and timeless masterpieces on the walls. Hermione knows the risk to try and take two people at once but she's good in her job, the best even so she enters the Lestrange bedroom and disarms both before they even wake up, flicks the light on and puts the guns to their head.

**xxii.**

Bellatrix's a beautiful creature with wild dark locks and full red lips even without lipstick and she reminds Hermione of a siren that lulls sailors in her caves to rip them apart. Bellatrix spits, tries to bite her even and Hermione needs to put a bullet trough Rodolphus shoulder - an act out of necessity of course - and she abandons them a second after without a further guide or clue to Tom.

_(she doesn't kill them, they're not her target after all)_

**xxiii.**

Abraxas Malfoy is the last name on her list and the moment she corners him it feels almost too easy, too smooth. She fetters him to a metal chair and watches how he rips at the iron cuffs, how it cuts in his wrists and she's almost sure this is some kind of big joke because when his eyes meet hers, when she really looks at him he's handsome, admirable once more with platinum blond hair, a straight peaked nose and light grey eyes, high cheekbones and a masculine jaw and how is it that all of them look rather like supermodels instead of good old fashioned mobsters like in the 40s or 50s?

"Where's Tom Marvolo Riddle?", she asks and there's something strange in her voice, something that sounds a lot like desperation and she swallows, takes a breath but Abraxas stays silent, remains stoic and he bites his lips until they bleed. She watches the blood dripping down his chin and she turns around and leaves.

**xxiv.**

She made a pact with the dirt, with the cold of fresh steel, with the copper of blood. She needs to find another plan.

_(she doesn't kill him, he's not her target after all)_

**xxv.**

She returns to her motel room in the evening and a dark suspicion nags on the back of her head, a premonition but there's no time because something hits her head, heavy and large and she flops down to the floor, feels her conscious slipping and there are feet right before her eyes, fine dark italian leather, a voice like honey - then darkness.

Pure, cold darkness.

**xxvi.**

She's a survivor.

_(it's written all over her body)_


End file.
